Mirror Mondays: The Witches of 1986. Why 1986?

So, one has to ask: why 1986?

It is a legitimate question and one that lingers under both Jackson, IL, and Advanced Witches & Warlocks.

I am not talking about the 1980s as a whole, or nostalgia for its own sake. You will find your share of cassette tapes and denim jackets here, horror paperbacks and D&D books with well-worn corners; they are part of the ambiance and atmosphere. I mean this year in particular. Why 1986?

State of the Art for AD&D 1986

For Advanced Witches & Warlocks, it is a strange and handy vantage point. If you go back to the 1974 boxed set, Dungeons & Dragons was almost thirteen years old by then. It was no longer a child. It had acquired a history, some scars, a few good arguments, and traditions. It was a teenager now. At times awkward, at times brilliant, occasionally too sure of itself, and sometimes hard to put a name to, but full of potential. In other words, a bit contradictory. A Witch book from this time should also be like that.

The first flush of the D&D/AD&D gold rush was done with. The game was a culture in its own right, having made its way from college clubs and basements into hobby shops, school lunchrooms, news stories, and even church warnings. With the Monster Manual, the Player’s Handbook, and the Dungeon Master's Guide, AD&D had a core identity and dictated how you were to think about fantasy adventure.

And yet it was in flux. Ravenloft was already on the scene, making a theatrical and tragic impression with its brand of gothic horror. Dragonlance had happened that placed more emphasis on charcaters as characters than previously. Note: Both Ravenloft and Dragonlance became part of what has been called the Hickman Revolution, and often the start of the Silver Age of D&D. The Forgotten Realms were coming, destined to be one of the big shared campaign worlds. So yes, 1986 has a liminal quality to it. AD&D was past its rawest beginnings but not yet the highly branded ecosystem it would turn into. Things were changing. 

That is exactly where the Witch belongs. In the space between the little brown books and the grand campaign worlds, between a dungeon crawl and some gothic melodrama. Between the wargame heritage and the kind of character play we were doing, even if the rules didn’t quite say so. That is what I am are after with Advanced Witches & Warlocks. Not some modern witch retrofitted for AD&D, nor a twenty-first-century class in old-school dress. I want a witch who could have been there, one you might have found on the same shelf as the old hardbacks in a used bookstore, in an era when parents got nervous seeing their kids sketch pentagrams in their notebooks.

She was always in AD&D waiting to be written down, but 1986 is when I can see her most clearly.

As for Jackson, IL, 1986 is important for another reason. It is one of the last moments before "the world wakes up from history."  You get the sense of it from "Right Here, Right Now" by Jesus Jones, though that song is from the early 90s, after the walls came down and things were moving too fast to keep up. 1986 is still on the other side of the mirror. The world was not yet as small as the internet would make it. You couldn’t check a fact in five seconds flat or send off a text to all your friends from the cemetery. From the comfort of your bedroom, you were not going to put your hands on a satellite map, or some scanned newspaper archive, or find what you needed on a message board. Information was something you had to go and get. It had a place.

So you went to the library to check the archives. You hopped on your bike and made the trip across town. You put in a call to someone’s home with the hope their parents would not be the ones to pick up. You made notes, copied down an address, and then you waited. The world was bigger like that, which is why it was so easy for shadows to take hold.

Horror needs that.

In Jackson, secrets have a way of surviving because the town is local enough for them to. Rumor has speed, but it is not even. There are things the adults know that the teenagers do not, and vice versa. And while there are records, they are sitting in a file cabinet, a yearbook, the church basement, or a box in some attic. A haunted town requires some friction. 1986 provides it.

But one must be careful with 1986; it is not as innocent as it seems. That is the trap when you write about the eighties. You can make the decade into set dressing with its neon and synthesizers, its malls and hairspray and horror films. I am fond of all that, but it does not cut it. If the year is to have any meaning, it must also have horror and pain; it has to hurt a little.

January 28, 1986, hurt.

When the Space Shuttle Challenger came apart 73 seconds into its flight, all seven on board were lost. NASA will tell you it was the STS-51L mission, and with Christa McAuliffe involved, many a schoolchild was tuned in. It was supposed to be routine. Easy. For my generation, it was one of the first times we saw a public tragedy in real time.

On April 26, 1986, the Chernobyl Reactor 4 suffered a catastrophic meltdown. All our fears about nuclear power played out for us on our TVs. The great specter of nuclear meltdown was now on our evening news, delivered by Tom Brokaw.

We had known the world was not safe, but this was different. It came into the classroom and put an end to the promise we had been fed. Space was our future, the shuttle was routine, the teachers were going up there, and the adults were in charge. Then the sky opened up, and you could see the horror on the faces of the very same adults.

That is what I want in Jackson. Not as a plot device to be used up, but as atmosphere. A fracture in the adult world. A teenage witch in 1986 is surrounded by grown-ups who will tell you they have everything under control despite the evidence to the contrary. You come to realize there are no paladins or wizards; they do not have the spell memorized, and sometimes they built the machine without heeding the warning that it might break. Once you see that, the world is a different place. It is more than innocence lost. It is the thin veil of lies about innocence. 

I talk about it a lot here, but even the Satanic Panic has its part to play in both projects. With Advanced Witches & Warlocks, it is the cultural Zeitgeist that makes D&D seem perilous to those who cannot fathom it, lumping in heavy metal, the occult, and a teenager’s imagination as one great threat. It was stupidity, but stupidity has a way of shaping a culture. Just watch the news today.

In Jackson, IL, it is more than useful. A moral panic lets the respectable sort act on old fears. The girl was always a bit odd; the house was already off-limits, and the symbols in the notebook were being noticed. The Santic Panic just gave them leave to do something about it.

You don’t need the Satanic Panic to make a witch. What it makes is an excuse for one to be hunted, feared, and reviled. And that is the more frightening part.

Then there was the music. By 1986, you could still hear the early synth-pop and New Romanticism of the decade’s opening, but the center had moved. The hair metal era was on its way to taking over the landscape, though not yet in full force. 1986 is the space between those things. It is not one note. That is significant.

It is a year of transition. You can feel the afterglow of Live Aid from ’85, and Farm Aid had only just been held back in September out of concern for American family farmers. I put some weight on that because Farm Aid was in Champaign, Illinois, and that puts you in Jackson’s orbit, in the Midwest.

The music wasn’t merely an escape. It was making an effort, if a bit awkward at times, to be something more: political, useful, global. A mix-tape was your confessional, a message for when words would not do. Put in a request at the local station and hope someone heard it. It had the power of a spell.

Take Paul Simon’s Graceland in ’86, with all its complicated influence, as he brought South African sounds to the American mainstream. Or Peter Gabriel’s So, which managed to be art-rock and pop at once, and the end of his cult following days. Run-DMC put out Raising Hell that year, too, a necessary step for hip-hop to be seen by the rest of us.

I don’t see this as mere soundtrack trivia. It tells me what sort of year we are in. The old categories are dissolving, and the voices that were left out are being heard. Parents have their worries, the kids are tuning in regardless, and the culture is at odds over who has the right to speak and what is deemed dangerous.

The whole Parental Advisory row comes of this time. The Parents Music Resource Center was founded in 1985, aiming to label anything with objectionable lyrics. Much like the Satanic Panic, it made youth culture a battleground of fear and control.

Witches find that handy.

A witch is someone who will be labeled. Dangerous, immoral, corrupting, or unnatural. Too loud or too quiet. Too independent, too well read, too strange to be put in a box. You will find it in a fantasy village or a modern high school, in any small town where they think virtue is the same as conformity.

So 1986 puts pressure on me from both sides.

For Advanced Witches & Warlocks, it is an AD&D moment; the Witch has her place in a game that is between phases. The old stuff still counts but the new is coming, and horror has already made its way into the castle. For my purposes in Jackson, IL, it is a modern setting where a teenage witch can be left to her own devices, misread and watched, and have to go about things the old way. You could say the world is in a state of flux, but it is not yet all one piece. There are still secrets a town can hold. A girl can come across something in a library drawer and have no simple means of telling whether another soul has ever laid eyes on it.

Then there is 1986. It presents me with a culture that is afraid of its children. In some ways, that is the point of it.

Take the D&D crowd, the metalheads, the kids into horror or punk or goth. The queer kids, the smart ones, the strange boys and girls with their notebooks of symbols, the ones who read too much and ask questions they should not. They do not fit the narrative adults have put together for them.

The Witch is to be found there, at the fringes of what is approved. She is not the trouble. She is merely the one to see that the trouble was there to begin with.

That is why 1986 works. Do not mistake it for being simpler or better; it was neither. But it sat on a threshold. You had AD&D old enough for its own mythology yet young enough to leave some rooms empty. The modern world was tied in enough to feel global change but not so much as to put an end to local mystery. The whole culture was loud and nervous and moralizing, creative and frightened and very much alive.

A good year for witches. For mirrors. For secrets.

Mirror Shard: 1d12 Things Found in a 1986 Witch’s Room

This will work for Jackson, IL, or any modern supernatural game you want to set before the internet made doing your research too convenient. A teenage witch does not have a wizard’s tower. Her room is more perilous than that. Private, half-hidden, temporary, and only a knock from her parents away from being found out.

Make a d12 roll or pick and choose.

1. A spiral notebook with dream fragments and song lyrics, plus a page of symbols she cannot recall putting there.
2. An overdue library book on folklore, three months past due. The checkout card has the same name on it every eleven years.
3. Cassette tapes in a shoebox. Put in the unmarked one, and you will hear a voice going through the names in the town cemetery.
4. A hand mirror with a crack in it, wrapped up in a scarf. Works fine until after midnight.
5. A black cat charm on a broken chain. You can tell when spirits are close by how warm it feels.
6. A Polaroid of four of her friends in front of the school. If you look between them, there is a fifth shadow.
7. An old coffee mug with a candle stub in it. Lies in the room, and it will burn blue.
8. A note from class. Open it up, and the handwriting is different each time.
9. Some clipping from the paper on a death half a century back. She keeps it, though she has no reason to.
10. A flower pressed from the cemetery fence. Picked months ago, and yet it has not dried.
11. An old mixtape that says "DO NOT PLAY SIDE B." There is no music on side B, just breathing and a bell tolling in the distance.
12. A character sheet for a red-haired witch in purple and black for D&D. The player will tell you she never created her; she created herself.

Fantasy Fridays: Forgotten Realms Book of Lairs

 Working through my Forgotten Realms books. I’ve been wanting to put in some time with the Forgotten Realms reviews. In part because I have a pile of them here staring at me. Taunting me. 

The one for today is an odd little utility book of the sort TSR excelled at in the late 80s and early 90s.  Don’t expect a campaign-shaking mega-adventure or a big boxed set. Nor is it one of those "here is an entire country, good luck" affairs. It is far more straightforward. "Here are some monsters and their lairs. Go on and have an adventure."

Book of Lairs [Forgotten Realms] (2e)

1994. By Nicky Rea and Sam Witt. Cover art by Larry Elmore, interiors from Valerie Valusek, and cartography by John Knecht and Rob Lazzaretti. 96 pages.

For this review, I am considering my PDF and PoD versions from DriveThruRPG.

This book follows the previous Book of Lairs format TSR has put out in the past, only this is tailored for the Forgotten Realms and for AD&D 2nd edition. Inside you will find 35 short scenarios, each with a monster at its heart. The product copy touts "over 30" adventures for a single session full of danger and humor and the like; I would say that is as apt a description as any.

One thing I do want to point out right away in reading this. Hidden in the math is an ersatz or even proto-Challenge Rating. Each monster lair listing has recommended total levels and recommended average party level. Divide the total levels by 6 to get close to the average party level. It works much in the same way Monster Mark did, and Challenge Levels do. We almost had this in 1994. 

Also note that this is not a monster book, nor an adventure book in the full sense. It is a collection of mini-situations and encounters. And that is where you will find both the merit and the flaw in it.

They do make some assumptions about your library, namely that you have the Campaign Setting and the Monstrous Compendium appendices for the Realms. The latter is key.

You won’t be looking at the usual suspects. We have alguduirs, asperii, beguilers, belabras, bhaergala, bichirs, cantobeles, cildabrins, crawling claws, crimson death, dimensional warpers, dracoliches, fachans, firenewts, frosts, hauns, inquisitors, loxo, monkey spiders, morins, orpsus, revenants, saurials, sha’az, silver dogs, thylacines, wemics, and so on. This is strength really. It makes this a Realms book and not the same as the previous Book of Lairs. IT does mean you need the Forgotten Realms Monstrous Compendium pages, though.

With the old Monstrous Compendium type books/pages you are given some wonderful, oddball creatures and left to your own devices. I don’t mind that; I enjoy my monster books for the reading. But a monster ought to have context, a place in the world, something more than a roll on the random encounter table to justify its presence.

Book of Lairs provides that. Each entry is brief, a page or two at the most. There is the creature, the setup, the lair, a few complications. You can run it with hardly any prep. You will find another reviewer has it right: the bulk of the encounters in here run to 2 or 3 pages and are drawn from the monsters in MC3 and MC11, the appendices for the Forgotten Realms Monstrous Compendium. It is a quality that makes the book feel like something you can put to good use at the table.

Then again, not all of them are "Realmsy" (if you want to call it that). You could take some of these and put them in Greyhawk, Mystara, my own Mystoerth, or wherever your world is with no trouble. I would say that is the best way to employ the book these days. Sure, it is a 96-page tome of weird AD&D monster encounters and a product of the Realms, but I can make use of it anywhere. My oldest is currently using it in his own world using AD&D 1st edition, so it has flexibility. 

The setting does make its presence known. You will come across Harpers, Zhentarim, Tyr, Moander, places like Westgate, Yhaunn, Calaunt, the Shining Plains, and Sembia. But do not expect the kind of lore you get in The Code of the Harpers; this is a working DM’s book. I think that is why I like it.

My only real gripe (and this is a minor one) is with how it is put together. An alphabetical list by monster is well and good when you have decided on a dracolich or revenant, but what if you are looking for something to throw at a 5th-level party in a swamp? So an index by level or difficulty (dare I say, Challenge Rating) would be great.

But then, it is 1994 TSR. This is the sort of thing you were meant to read, mark up, and leave next to your DM's screen. Find an encounter, make it your own, and be done with it. There is a very AD&D sensibility to that.

In many ways, the Realms at this time still has that huge, messy quality to it, with things left unexplained. I see that as a feature, not a bug. The Forgotten Realms is at its best when it seems you have only seen one inn or one haunted ruin, and there are a hundred other things about to step out of the torchlight. This book gives you that sense.  I mean, despite the fact that we are now sitting on the other side of 40 years of published Realms lore, I am still new to all of this.

There is your dracolich lair, the big ticket item, but I am more inclined toward the odder, smaller fare. A silver dog, a saurial, a wemic, or the thylacines (I am a fan of The Howling III, and I think at least someone on the Realms staff is as well.). They are the kind of creature that tells you the Realms is more than generic fantasy with Elminster tacked on. These are places where oddities have families, enemies, and a history.

That is what the book is worth. It shows you a monster is not a stat block. It has a place, a situation, and motivation. And the lair itself is often the adventure.

Sinéad, Nida, Arnell, Jaromir, and Rhiannon

Since my characters are still heading east, this book is immediately useful to me. I could drop one of these encounters into their path without too much trouble. A strange beast on the road. A ruined tower with something nesting inside. A village dealing with a problem that is bigger than they understand. That is exactly the sort of thing this book is built for.

I don’t know that Book of Lairs is essential Realms material. If you are building a Realms library, you want the boxed sets, the regional books, the big lore books, and probably the deity books before this one. But if you are actually running AD&D 2nd Edition Forgotten Realms, or any old-school fantasy game, this is the kind of book that earns its keep.

It is not flashy. It is not a grand tour of Faerûn. It is not going to explain the Time of Troubles or give you the secret history of the Harpers. It will give you a monster in a lair and a reason for the characters to investigate. Which, honestly, is how most good monster encounters should work.

The PDF and PoD are both legible and easy to read for a scanned product.

The PoD suffers from faded text typical of a scan, but this one is a little better than most, to be honest, and unless you are looking for it, you might not notice it. 

All in all, pretty happy with my purchase.

Jackson, IL: NPCs, the Adults in the Room

No game for me this past weekend. They were doing their "Pokémon meets D&D" game and no time for the 1980s. That's fine, I have a bit more world-building I need to do.

The thing about Jackson is that not every adult in town is clueless about the Supernatural. Many are, most are too thick to know. But there are some who know the truth, and some of them have fought these battles before. Here are some of the adults I want to put forward as my actual "Veterans of the Supernatural Wars." 

Old Jackson Public High School

Most of these adults don't really need stats; they won't be doing any fighting unless it is off-screen. Though it is possible that they could need them later on. For the most part, these are either 0-level humans or maybe 1st or 2nd level in something.

Lars Nichols

Lars is Larina's father. He is a good one to have in the game, whether or not Larina remains a named NPC. Like Larina as the New Girl, he is the New Teacher. He is a professor of Anthropology at MacAlister College, so he will make a good resource for the characters. 

Lars came to mind nearly fully formed. I knew he had the same hair color as Larina and that he had brown eyes. He sings, he loves music, he has an impressive music collection. And he LOVES Yes. Like obsessively so. And Larina is a complete Daddy's girl. Of course, "Larina" means "daughter of Lars." But Larina came first, and Lars came around later. Her mother is/was named Siân Stephens Nichols (my homage to Bewitched). She was blonde with blue eyes, the same eye color as Larina. I spent some time with Lars and Siân as OSE characters, and they were a blast. 

In Larina's original AD&D 1st ed version, her mom and dad both died when she was 19, necessitating her adventuring.  In my Dark Places & Demogorgons version, her parents are both still alive. Here, her mother died, and Lars and his daughter moved up from Southern Illinois so he could take a job at MacAlister. 

Lars is likely a Sage, maybe level 4. Yeah, I know I said 0 or 1, but he is going to be a solid resource. Plus, Lars knows about the supernatural; he prefers to avoid it when he can, but that is difficult when his daughter is one of the most powerful witches in the game.  

I like Lars. He is a good guy and acts all happy, but he is still mourning his wife. Because of this he will be protective of the characters.

Archetype: The cool, but heartbroken, single father
Quote: "Love what you love while you can, and never apologize for playing the record one more time."
Quirks: Has a huge record collection. Loves Yes, still misses his wife.
Theme song: "Wonderous Stories" by Yes

Malcolm "Mac" McGowan

Malcolm "Mac" McGowan is first and foremost the grandfather of Rowan McGown, the presumptive Spirit Rider of Jackson. His son, Jake, was the Spirit Rider for this area, but he and his wife were killed in a car crash leaving only the baby Rowan to survive. She was supposed to die as well. They were killed by supernatural agents. Mac has always known this and has done everything in his mortal-mundane power to keep Rowan safe. But he knows that sooner or later she is going to need to take up the mantle if Jackson is to remain safe. 

He is an older man who moved here from Scotland many years ago with his Irish wife. Their son Jake was born here in Jackson, and they settled down. Mac got a job caring for the horses at the Thompson Stables, hired by Andy's grandfather, who always respected Mac. It was their idea to have young Anderson come to the stables to learn how to care for the animals and destiny was forged when Andy fell in love with Rowan.

Yes, that is the flannel shirt Rowan wears now. She stole it when she was 12 and never gave it back. Wearing it reminds her of her grandfather.

Mac likes Andy, he sees more of Andy's own grandfather in him than his father, which is good. He also knows he will be kind to Rowan.  MAc respects people who work hard, but has a lot of issues with those who deal with the supernatural, especially Valerie Beaumont. These two have a history, and he is one of the very few people who know her secret.  Valerie wants to train Rowan in sword fighting to prepare her for her role as Jackson's Spirit Rider, and conveniently keeping all three away from directly helping and stealing the spotlight away from the PCs.

Valerie: "Good morning, Mac. You going to invite me in for coffee or shoot me with that revolver you are hiding in your jacket?"
Mac: "I have not decided yet. Maybe both."

If Mac has a class, he would be a level 1 or 2 Veteran. 

Archetype: The Protective Grandfather
Quote: "Horses don’t care what you say you are. They only care what you actually are."
Quirks: Talks to horse like they understand him. Maybe they do.
Theme song: "The Skye Boat Song" - The Corries

There are a lot of parallels between Lars and Mac, just as there are between Larina and Rowan. Almost like they are similar characters with different paths and choices. I like to explore these ideas. If Larina and Rowan are very similar, it might also explain why, in my mind, they are friendly to each other, but not friends. 

Of course, none that might matter in the actual game. So far, the players and the characters have only seen them in the background.  The teachers in the school are more important right now.

Here are a couple more.

Thomas Avery

Mr. Avery is the school's "cool" teacher. He is known to be a little eccentric, a little odd, and his classes are a lot of fun. He teaches Classical Literature, Senior Honors Lit, and Freshman English. He quotes Shakespeare in class, and he directs the Fall plays. 

Mr. Avery's big secret is that he is gay. He tries to keep his personal life to himself because, well, it's just 1985-86 and people are still bigoted. When he was younger, and the AIDS crisis began, he got "The Talk" by the school board. He was so embarrassed and frustrated that he considered leaving teaching altogether. Now he makes sure he is never alone with a student, always meets in the open, and never, ever touches anyone. He knows how quickly misunderstandings turn into rumors and rumors become more.  To that end, Keri Moreau flirts with him openly and often, which he finds amusing. She told him that she was willing to do whatever was needed to ensure he was protected. She is also at his side during the school plays as the "Assistant Director" of the plays. The other English teacher, Glenn Daniels, wants him gone, but he is intimidated by Keri, and she makes sure he never has an excuse. 

Thomas Avery is a lot of students' favorite teacher, and they will say he is one of the few who listen to them. Really listens to them. Again, I like to think Avery is a good guy. He loves teaching and he loves when students read something that really means something to them. 

Thomas and Elaine have been sharing their observations, and they are coming to understand that some students are more than they appear. And there are some things that hide in the dark. 

Thomas is likely just a level 1 Sage. 

Archetype: The Fun Teacher
Quote: "Words are not harmless. That is why we teach them."
Quirks: Quotes Shakespeare whenever he can.
Theme song: “The Sound of Silence” by Simon & Garfunkel

Elaine Bellweather

Elaine: "Some things work whether you believe in them or not. That is why you must be careful."
Faye: "Are we still talking about Jazz, Miss Bellweather?"

Miss Elaine Bellweather is Jackson Public High School's music teacher. She teaches Music Appreciation and History, Choir, and is the orchestra conductor. She doesn't teach band, though. The students think she is a bit old-fashioned; she still dresses like she did in the 1960s, and most students think she is older than she really is. She is only 45. 

Miss Bellweather is from one of the "first families" of Jackson. Along with the Thornes, Thompsons, and Vales, the Bellweathers were among the first to settle on the Mauvaisterre Moraine that would become Jackson. She never married, so she will be the last Bellweather. Like the Vales and Thornes, the Bellweathers produced a number of witches. The Thornes are hags, though many don't know that, and the Vales have a history of magic. The Bellweathers were Hedgewitches. As Elaine would say, her "grandmother could see around a few corners."  Elaine herself has no magical ability, but I do say she has some sensitivity. In game terms I say she is a 2nd or 3rd level Sage. She knows a couple of simple spells. 

Elaine lives in a small house with Marian Fitzpatrick, her long-time friend from their days at MacAlister.

Elaine Bellweather is also gay, but she doesn't get the same level of discrimination that Thomas does. That is the double standard of the 1980s that, for once, works in her favor, just for the wrong reasons. 

Not many students consider her their "favorite teacher," but she loves her job, and music is her life. She keeps a detailed set of notes on all the strange things she sees. She shares these notes with Mr. Avery and Mrs. Gloria Haskel, the school Librarian. Between the three of them they know about the monsters and work where they can to protect the students.

Elaine would be at best a level 1 Sage.

Archetype: The Shockingly Perceptive Teacher / Hedge Witch
Quote: "No, I do not know magic. I know songs. People are always confusing the two."
Quirks: Never married. Grandmother was a witch.
Theme song: “Will You Love Me Tomorrow” by The Shirelles

Thomas and Elaine are also my subtle nod to the Monsterhearts game I played a while back, which was also almost like a Proto-Jackson. Much like Stranger Things did a flashback involving the previous generation, I like to think that Thomas and Elaine may have known something back when they were kids struggling on their own. I don't think they were in school together, at least I have not worked out their histories or backstories much more than what I have here, but I am leaving it all open. Mac would have been here, but he would have been an adult then as well. 

These are more of my "veterans of the supernatural wars." Just in this case, the last war.

Mirror Mondays: The Witches of 1986. Teenage Witches and the Haunted Midwest

Last week, I examined the witch in AD&D. As a class and a monster in a game of spell lists, curses, familiars, old women living at the edge of villages, mysterious maps, and a host of others. Advanced Witches & Warlocks is a project that aims to give her proper due among the iconic elements of classic fantasy RPGs.

But there is another mirror.

If the Advanced Witches & Warlocks is interested in exploring the witch as an element of a fantasy game in 1986, then the Jackson, IL project is a consideration of how the witch would fit in the modern horror world of 1986.

By the "modern," I don't mean contemporary times. I mean an era of landlines, lockers, cassette tapes, libraries, horror movies at midnight, school rumors, and parents who believe they can keep secrets from teens

These are very different takes on witches.

In the world of AD&D, the witch is always on the edge of the village. By the old road, the swamp, the shrine in ruins, or the sinister forest. In the Jackson, IL setting, she is on the edge of town, near the cemetery, an abandoned structure, the stream, the college, a different neighborhood, or a lonely road.

The map is different, but the location itself is not.

Jackson, IL, is where my imagination has found its new home. This place isn't Salem, nor New Orleans, nor some gothic European village under the full moon, despite my affection for those locations. No, Jackson is in the Midwest. It is a small town in central Illinois. A town with brick school buildings, college halls, county roads, corn fields, old graveyards, tiny churches, pizza shops, book stores, hardware stores, Friday night football games, Friday night dances, and houses where three generations have kept the same secret.

In Jackson, the supernatural does not require thunderous declarations or Latin incantations to reveal itself. Instead, it is rather subtler.

Perhaps it is the teacher who hasn't aged since 1569. Perhaps a door in the library, locked for no apparent reason. Perhaps a statue at the cemetery changing directions at midnight. Perhaps the name of a creek that no one remembers where the name came from. Or perhaps it is the mirror reflecting something other than yourself.

This is the haunting of the Midwest. It is not empty. It is a place filled with ghosts.

Every town in the Midwest has its stories: the house that has never been sold, the road where headlights disappear, the creepy old lady that kids are told not to approach, the rail road tracks where strange things occur, the auditorium in the school where lights flicker even with the power shut off, and the place outside town known only by its ominous name of "the Bad Land."

These are stories that form the Jackson, IL environment. Not simply the background, but the actual foundation on which the Veil between what is "Real" and what is considered "Supernatural" is constructed.

Most people in the town interact with the supernatural indirectly, in fleeting moments. A shadow. A whisper. A dream. A cold sensation down the spine. A name spoken out of nowhere. And they explain it away, because that is what humans do. It is simpler to believe that everything is ordinary than to accept that ancient tales still speak truth.

Teenagers are not good at keeping their thoughts and opinions to themselves. That is why a teenager is perfect in a game about supernatural activity.

Adults follow routines, have reputations, jobs, mortgages, church groups, seats on the school board, and myriad reasons to preserve the "official" story. Teenagers care about other things. Why does that room stay locked? Why are they avoiding that particular teacher? Why did Mom go silent when I mentioned that name? Why does the school bell ring differently to me? And why do I see the woman in the black cloak and purple dress in the mirror?

Thus, the teenage witch belongs in this place.

Not only is she a character living between two worlds. At least partly, but not entirely. She is not a kid anymore, but she is not yet an adult. People look at her, underestimate her, boss her around, dismiss her, and correct her, all before she even knows who she truly is.

And then comes the magic.

She begins having dreams. Strange marks appear on her skin. She finds books at the library with strange titles. A stray cat starts following her wherever she goes and never leaves. Her reflection starts speaking to her. And perhaps she discovers that the story about the dead girl haunting the bathrooms at school was not just a story.

That is the importance of their first experiences.

Whereas in the world of AD&D, the witch appears with powers, spells, and a clear-cut purpose, here she is noticed. The world recognizes something in her, and she recognizes it back.

This can be terrifying, but also terribly tempting.

I played this scenario with Larina. There is a young girl named Larina. Some kids call her "Creepy." She has visions and talks to ghosts, but she tries to hide her magical abilities because she knows that using them attracts attention from things in the darkness.

This scenario is perfectly designed for Jackson, IL. But I also realized there was a lot more I could do with it. That starting with powers is one type of game, but developing them as the game progresses is something else. 

Being magical in the Jackson environment means revealing oneself. Every casting of a spell is an exposure to the darkness seeking light. Every magical act draws eyes. 

Jackson, IL, is still a modern reflection of the AD&D-inspired fantasy world in Advanced Witches & Warlocks. The witch concept remains the same, but the clothes are different.

The group of friends is the coven. After hours in school are the dungeons. Rumors around town turn into gossip in hallways. The wise woman standing at the edge of the village is now someone's aunt, a school teacher, a local shop owner, or someone who has waited patiently for the right girl to ask the right questions.

The familiar becomes a pet that manages to enter the school for reasons that no one understands. A notebook under the bed takes the place of the spell book. The place beyond the fence at the cemetery is the ruined shrine. An ancient deity is a name scrawled in pencil at the abandoned classroom.

But Jackson, IL, cannot merely be a simple adaptation of fantasy RPGs. 

Not only would it be uninteresting, but it would lack necessary depth. It would be uninspired. 

Modern horror has to have its own logic.

While in a fantasy game, the main heroes are expected to take up swords and bravely venture into the dungeons, their counterparts in the modern horror world still have homework to do.

They have to attend classes, deal with parents, curfews, training, work after school, live up to peer expectations, compete with rival schools, maintain reputations, deal with their younger brothers and sisters, and people who would certainly notice if they were gone for three days straight.

This makes a big difference.

A teenage witch cannot just leave town on adventures, and she has to find a way to come back, to cover the stains on her jacket, to explain why her homework was done in the library, why she is late for algebra after having seen something crawling out of the drain at night. And yet, this is not a restriction; it is the essence of the game.

The ordinary world, which is often a barrier in games of the supernatural, is, in fact, what makes them scary.

An isolated haunted school becomes frightening precisely because it is her school. A cursed road is terrifying precisely because her best friend lives on the other side of it. The monster at the cemetery terrifies her, because Grandma is buried there, while the witch's mark makes her fear going to gym class. The ordinary makes the scary parts scarier. 

This is where the theme of the Satanic Panic emerges as well, but in the background.

Not as a simple decoration, but as the very core of the game, because the town uses that panic as a vehicle to express existing fears that otherwise remain untapped. The odd girl has always been creepy, the abandoned house - terrifying, the mysterious books at the library – suspicious. While the rumor makes the witch, it provides a ready-made justification for the search. This is horror, not because of accusations, but because of the town's desperation to believe that it has reason.

Since the community is already scared of her dark clothes, her books, her music, her art, and the woods she loves, the Satanic Panic gives this fear permission. It transforms gossip into social concern, suspicion into righteousness, and parents into monstrous beings, not changing their appearances in the slightest.

Because this is Jackson, IL, the choice of setting is critical. Where in a grand gothic landscape, the supernatural would sprawl. Here it is concentrated in the small-town Midwest. Everyone knows someone; everyone is related to someone; there are always witnesses to secrets; and there are always connections between the town monster and this place, even if no one has figured them out yet.

The ghost is not just a ghost. She used to be someone's sister, student, patient, or an innocent victim of a horrible event. The hag is not a creature that came here to terrorize. She may be an aunt, a landlord, a neighbor at church, the one whose home everyone avoids because of some terrible sin, or the very reason that three generations of women in one family never drink tea after dark. Local legends are not just myths. They are a necessity. People share their tales with such inaccuracy because the truth demands too much action.

Here is the haunted Midwest I imagine for Jackson: the place familiar enough to evoke a sense of security, and unfamiliar enough to hint at inherent dangers.

It is the time that makes the adventure unique as well. 1986 is not chosen by coincidence, although the brand recognition factor cannot be denied. It represents not nostalgia, but distance in time. No smartphones, GPS systems, online investigations, instant messaging apps, or fast transportation are available for the characters. If something terrible happened at night, they needed a phone line, a bicycle, a car, a payphone, or the guts to go to see it.

Rumors spread quickly, but not evenly. Information is stored in filing cabinets, yearbooks, church hallways, newspaper archives, and the library collection.

Which means that all the investigations are hands-on. The characters have to move from place to place, talk to people, and expose themselves. Which is important because in Jackson, IL, knowledge is bound to a place. The public library is important not because it is there, but because it has archived newspapers. The occult shop is valuable not for supplies but for the chance of someone seeing a teenager there. The school is necessary because almost everyone in town once studied there and left something behind. And the cemetery is crucial, because names are inscribed in stone, but not necessarily in the right manner.

As you remember, the power of the witch in Advanced Witches & Warlocks is bound to fantasy conventions and expectations. It is associated with danger, complexity, and power. Magic comes at a price. It creates bonds and produces unexpected results. In Jackson, IL, everything is different because the flow of magical powers has changed. 

This is the reason why these two projects complement each other.

While the Advanced Witches & Warlocks focuses on how witches look in a classic AD&D fantasy world, Jackson explores how a sixteen-year-old witch attending a class on Tuesday morning realizes that her destiny is tied to something far older than the town.

I am not yet sure whether this second project will eventually lead to a full-fledged book. And it may take quite a bit of writing and effort, probably surpassing 80,000 words before I finally figure out the full vision, there is one thing that I am sure about.

Jackson, IL, is a perfect reflection. While the witch at the edge of the ancient village is the witch wearing the black cloak on the old road in Advanced Witches & Warlocks, the witch sitting quietly at the high school is the girl on the bus looking at the old road with fascination.

Because the fantasy witch and the teenage witch are not different.

They are reflections of one another through the glass.

Prof. Lars Nichols with his daughter, Larina

Mirror Shard: Larina, the New Girl Witch

Every good haunted school needs a new girl.

It is one of the staples in teen horror literature and movies, and yet it works so well because it is not a gimmick. From Buffy Summers arriving at Sunnydale High to start a new life to Sarah Bailey transferring to a new school to become the missing fourth link in a teenage coven. The new girl arrives in the adventure exactly when it is born in the audience member's mind. The new girl does not yet understand the rules of the game, so we get to learn with her.

This is important in a horror RPG.

The long-time local heroine already knows what is better to remain unsaid. She knows the forbidden hallways, the names of the families whose conversation must be cut abruptly, and the teachers whom one has to joke with and not argue. She was taught by experience. While she may not fully believe in the town tales, she knows what they are about or at least what to avoid.

The new girl doesn't know anything. Not yet, at least.

• She wants to know why the third-floor room is locked all the time.
• She is curious why no one ever swims in the creek downstream.
• She wonders why there is a gap in the school's trophy case.
• She would like to understand why the librarian keeps local histories in the drawers rather than on the shelves.
• She would like to know why people fall silent whenever someone mentions "Mauvaisterre" or "Blackthorne."

This makes her useful. This also makes her dangerous.

The character of Larina fits the concept perfectly because she is known and unknown. We know where she can evolve into. The Witch Queen. The occult historian. The redhead witch, who wears black and purple clothing and stands in the way of the bad things trying to get into our world. 

But this is not the case in Jackson, IL.

Larina might have just moved into town because of her father's transfer to the college. She might be a newcomer attempting to blend into normality, failing to do so by noon. She might already be aware that ghosts exist in her town, but she has yet to comprehend their meaning. The other students might consider her creepy before she even introduces herself.

This is useful at the table.

The role of Larina as a New Girl Witch is not to figure out the details for players but to expose the mysteries by noticing things that everyone else failed to see or has learned to ignore.

I use Larina here because she is a great character for me. She is a stand-in, though, for any character the players bring to the table. 

• She observes the reflection's weird movement.
• She listens to a ringing of the bell that no one else can hear.
• She realizes that a stray cat hanging around the school has come there with a specific purpose.
• She discovers that the dead girl haunting the school bathrooms knows her name.
• Her first lesson of magic is not about casting a spell.
• It is about revealing her to the supernatural world.
• The ghosts can see her.
• The entity residing beneath the railroad tracks sees her.
• The teacher who has not aged since 1769 sees her.
• So do students who needed reasons to regard her as creepy.

So use the New Girl Witch when you want to start your campaign with a supernatural revelation. She can be a player character, NPC, rival, friend, or a stranger whom the other characters need to trust or not.

And just like the PCs, she does not have to know everything.

She just has to know enough to be scared.

The Witches of Appendix N: Andre Norton

 I am now heading into another important entry to the Appendix N. Andre Norton is one of only three women Gygax mentions. We are also getting one of the few books where witches are the key figures. Andre Norton is also notable for playing D&D with Gygax in 1976 and releasing the Greyhawk novel Quag Keep in 1979. 

Norton was a prolific writer and celebrated writer, and it would take much more than this blog post to cover all her contributions to science fiction and fantasy. But do plan to talk about her witches.

Witch World

Witch World is Andre Norton's magnum opus. A series that spans decades of real-world time, generations of in-world time, and even a few authors. 

The first proper series is known as the Estcarp Cycle. This covers the first few books of the Witch World tales. There are a few other books, but these are the five main ones from before 1977 I want to consider.  

• Witch World (1963)
• Web of the Witch World (1964)
• Three Against the Witch World (1965)
• Warlock of the Witch World (1967)
• Sorceress of the Witch World (1968)

The series begins with World War II, as Ex-colonel Simon Tregarth runs for his life. He got into a bit of trouble during the war, and now he needs a way out. Of all things, he finds someone who transports him to another world filled with magic and witches.

Simon meets a witch whose name we don't learn just yet, who introduces him to this world and the land of Estcarp. And to its magic. 

The first two books deal with Simon and his witch wife Jaelithe (I love that name). The next three focus on their witch triplets.

The Witches of Witch World

The Witches of Witch World are not like many of the witches we have seen so far. They are not an old hag in a cottage, nor are they enchantresses who attempt to seduce our hero with equal parts magic and sex appeal. No, these witches are the undisputed rulers of their land; each has a different set of powers, but all are magical in nature: shape changes, sendings, lots of illusion, subtle control, and the like. Simon is very much a "fish out of water" here with his mid-20th-century outlook in a quasi-medieval world. But it turns out that this is what helps him when he and his adoptive land of Estcarp in their battle with the mysterious land of Kolder.

The people of Kolder are also from another world, like Simon, but a different world where they have something more akin to psychic powers to counter the witches' magic. I rather liked this setup, and we see more of it in the second book, Web of the Witch World. The political and magical nature of the witches is then delved into more deeply in the next three books about Simon's and Jaelithe's tripplets, Kyllan, Kemoc, and Kaththea.

The witches themselves are great. Each has its own set of powers, and some are better than others. The cool thing was all the variety of powers.

The Witch Magic vs High Tech / Psychic Powers

One of my favorite parts of the first two books was the whole Witch Magic of Estcarp vs. the High-Tech and Psychic Powers of the Kolder. Like many Appendix N books, there is a bias towards the magical side of the battle. Now I enjoy the Pagan vs. Christianity struggle found in other books and history, but here the witches have a chance of winning. Not a spoiler, since there are so many more books in the series, but the witches win. It is an interesting interplay between Witchcraft and Psychic abilities that reminds me a lot of my own AD&D days, when I was all about the witches and witchcraft, and my high school DM was all about the psychic powers.

The next three books cover the Trigarth children. They represent something new to Estcarp, since the triplets, two boys and one girl, all have magic. Up to this point, only women had magic. The witches want Kaththea, the girl, to train with them to the exclusion of her two brothers, but their magic comes from their link. So they run away and discover more about their world. 

This takes the point of view that magic is inherited. 

These books were fun, but I enjoyed the first two more. The exploration of the parallel worlds, hinted at in the first two books, Earth and the world of Kolder, plays a more central role here, with Kaththea escaping to another world altogether.

The Question of Witches

Witch World is great. It is groundbreaking and pivotal to science fiction and fantasy genres. Andre Norton was even invited to Gary's table to play a game. Note: Quag Keep's protagonists travel to a fantasy world much like Simon Tregarth did in Witch World. 

The question then becomes if Witch World was so important and witches were so different from regular humans, then where are the witches? We even get psionics, the "magic" of Kolder, but not the witchcraft of the witches of Estcarp.

Yes, the magic-user is there as a generic, well, magic-using person. But that is really less than satisfactory, especially since in practice, magic-user was shorthand for wizard.  The witches of Witch World are different. 

Yes, I know this is not the space crack this particular cipher. It is something I do all over the place here. 

The witches of Estcarp are more than just female magic-users. Something I have said about many witches in this series and my own. But it is particularly true about these witches. Obviously, there was still something about that that made them unpalateble to Gygax and the early designers. Though I do know that Frank Mentzer liked witches in general.

I think Witch World is a good example, really. Not of the witch as a class, we have a lot of those in other Appendix N. This is an example that the witch comes with a price. Witches mean covens, structure, and a society. Witch power is socially negotiated.  The Witches of Estcarp demonstrate this with their power and when they work to later keep Jaelithe out and bring Kaththea in. 

Witches live in an ecosystem. I plan to keep exploring that ecosystem.

Running NIGHT SHIFT and Dark Places & Demogorgons: What I've Learned from Two 80s Campaigns

I’ve explored the world of 1980s supernatural gaming before.

I have done it with two OSR-adjacent rule systems, NIGHT SHIFT: Veterans of the Supernatural Wars and SURVIVE THIS!! Dark Places & Demogorgons.  This is not a post about which game is better than the other; I am not doing that. Both games are fantastic, and live very happily next to each other on my shelves and my gaming table. 

This is about what I learned from running two similar-style campaigns using rule systems drawn from the same ecology. 

And what you can learn from all of that.

Road to Nowhere: From Sunny Valley to Jackson

A few years ago, I played SURVIVE THIS!! Dark Places & Demogorgons from Bloat Games to revisit my love for Buffy the Vampire Slayer, but with a twist. Instead of Sunnydale, California in the late 1990s, I set the story in Sunny Valley, Ohio, in 1984. The characters were still Buffy, Willow, Tara, Faith, vampires, high school drama, and a Hellmouth. But the setting felt different; colder, more Midwestern, and even more 1980s. It was like a 'kids on bikes' story, except one kid had a stake and an epic destiny.

That experiment worked out really great. Dark Places & Demogorgons was the perfect game for this idea. It’s designed for stories about kids in the 1980s facing strange things that adults ignore or don’t believe. In Sunny Valley, the supernatural crept into childhood and early adolescence. The game was all about weekly monsters, school rumors, odd teachers, creepy houses, bad weather, and that feeling of being young and sensing something is wrong, even if you can’t explain it yet.

In short, it did exactly what I wanted. 

Once in a Lifetime

Now I’m working on something similar, but it’s not the same.

Jackson, IL, is another retro-80s supernatural setting. It’s a small Midwestern town with teenagers, high school drama, monsters, ghosts, witches, and things hiding just out of sight. At first glance, you might think, “Oh, this is just like Sunny Valley.”

But it’s not.

Sunny Valley was my way of taking the Buffy mythos and setting and shifting it into a different decade, state, and game system. It was a familiar story in an alternate reality. Jackson is different. It’s not just Sunnydale with a new name, or a copy of Jeffersontown from Dark Places & Demogorgons. Still, I’ll admit Jeffersontown ("J-town" to locals) reminded me of my hometown, Jacksonville ("J-ville" to locals), which inspired me to create Jackson. 

Jackson feels more personal to me.

With Jackson, I’m trying to blend the emotional feel of a real place, Central Illinois folklore, memories of growing up in the 1980s, and the supernatural style of NIGHT SHIFT: Veterans of the Supernatural Wars. I want it to feel like it’s always belonged there.

Don’t You (Forget About Me)

There is also a difference in what the systems want from the characters.

Dark Places & Demogorgons is about kids. That is one of its greatest strengths (if not its greatest strength). It understands the fears and freedoms of being young. The characters are not adults with jobs, mortgages, failed marriages, regrets, and long histories of supernatural trauma. They are kids trying to survive school, family, bullies, monsters, and the creeping suspicion that the world is stranger than anyone told them.

That made it perfect for Sunny Valley.

In that campaign, Buffy and her friends were younger. They were not the characters from the television show yet. They were versions of those characters caught earlier, rawer, and in some ways more vulnerable. Sunny Valley did not need the full emotional architecture of adulthood. It needed bicycles, lockers, cemeteries, malls, high school rivalries, and the occasional vampire getting dusted behind the gym.

I used those characters because there was very obvious "Buffy-DNA" in DP&D. I just let it come to the surface a little bit more.

NIGHT SHIFT, on the other hand, lets me broaden the frame.

Yes, Jackson has teenagers. In fact, teenagers are central to what I am doing with it. But Jackson also has adults who know things. Adults who failed. Adults who lied. Adults who fought the dark before and lost something. Adults trying to keep kids safe, even when they cannot tell them the truth.

That is important.

Jackson is not just a place where kids discover the supernatural. It is a place where the supernatural has always been and has a history. The Veil is thin here. The Bad Land, Mauvaisterre, is not just a monster factory. It is part of the town’s buried geography. The ghosts, witches, hags, psychics, cryptids, old families, school legends, and haunted buildings all connect to something deeper.

It feels like some of the adults are veterans of previous wars and can't do anything to stop the next one.

That feels like NIGHT SHIFT to me.

Jackson, IL, is "Veterans of the Supernatural Wars" as a thesis statement. 

And all to the music of John Mellencamp's "Scarecrow."

Everybody Wants to Rule the World

This is also why I do not see Dark Places & Demogorgons and NIGHT SHIFT as competing games.

Very much the opposite.

Dark Places & Demogorgons is created by Bloat Games, and I am happy to call them friends. I buy their books. They buy our NIGHT SHIFT books. We talk at the cons we are both at. We cheer on each other's successes. That is how this hobby should work. The world has plenty of room for both of us.

I have said before that a rising tide raises all ships, and I honestly believe that. Other designers are not my competition. They are my colleagues. They are my peers. Playing their games makes my games better. Reading their work makes me think harder about my own. Seeing how someone else handles 1980s supernatural horror gives me a better sense of what I want to do, what I want to avoid, and what I want to emphasize. What I want to do different. 

Dark Places & Demogorgons helped me think through Sunny Valley.

NIGHT SHIFT is helping me build Jackson.

Those are related acts of design, but not identical ones.

I Was Born in a Small Town

Sunny Valley was a Buffy-shaped experiment. It asked, "What if Buffy had happened in Ohio in 1984?" A simple question with a very satisfying answer. 

Jackson asks something else.

Jackson asks, "What if the town itself was haunted? What if the supernatural was not an interruption, but a pressure? What if every generation had its own monsters, its own secrets, and its own kids who had to deal with what the adults left behind?"

That is a different kind of game.

In Sunny Valley, the Hellmouth was there, but it was more indistinct. The characters knew something was wrong, but the exact nature of it was part of the joke and part of the mystery. Sunny Valley was ironic. Of course, the place called Sunny Valley was cold, rainy, and full of vampires. Ohio vampires, no less. 

Jackson is not ironic in the same way.

Jackson is a nice town. A real town, at least emotionally. It has high schools, colleges, pizza places, bookstores, old houses, churches, back roads, local legends, old money, bad memories, and teenagers who think they are the first generation to discover everything. It has a public face and a hidden one. That makes it ideal for NIGHT SHIFT, because NIGHT SHIFT is very good at letting the ordinary and the supernatural occupy the same space.

The horror in Jackson is not just "there is a monster."

The horror is "there always has been a monster, and someone knew."

That is a different tone altogether.

Home Sweet Home

The other major difference is ownership.

Sunny Valley was fun because it was a remix. I was taking characters and ideas I already loved and moving them into a different system (that I also loved) and a different decade (that I ... ok, you get it now). It was a creative exercise, and a very useful one. It let me explore Buffy, Willow, Tara, Faith, and the others through a different lens.

Jackson is worldbuilding from the ground up.

It owes something to Jacksonville, Illinois. It owes something to Jeffersontown. It owes something to every small Midwestern town with a haunted school, a local ghost story, a weird patch of woods, and one bookstore owner who knows more than they should. 

But Jackson is becoming its own thing. Sunny Valley allowed me to do a lot of cheating. Jackson is less forgiving. I don't get to crib notes from someone else's creative efforts; I have to do it all on my own.

That matters because Jackson needs to support more than a single campaign idea. It needs to hold high school drama, occult mystery, monster hunting, local history, family secrets, psychic phenomena, witchcraft, cryptids, and the strange gravity of a place where the Veil is too thin.

That is bigger than Sunny Valley.

Not better. Bigger.

Sunny Valley was a great place to run a specific kind of game.

Jackson is a full-on Night World.

We Built This City

Looking back, I can see a clear line from one project to the other.

Sunny Valley taught me that moving supernatural horror into the 1980s immediately changes the feel. No cell phones. No internet as we know it. Rumors move through notes in lockers, landlines, malls, classrooms, diners, and late-night phone calls. Research means libraries, newspapers, yearbooks, microfilm, local cranks, and that one teacher who knows too much.

Jackson takes all of that and pushes it further.

In Jackson, the 1980s are not just aesthetic. It is the structure. The period limits what characters can know, how quickly they can know it, and who they have to trust. The town becomes a network of secrets, and the kids are moving through it without a map. And it will be 15-20 years before anyone has GPS.

That is where the two projects really meet.

Sunny Valley was about taking a known supernatural teen drama and asking what it looked like through the lens of Dark Places & Demogorgons.

Jackson is about taking everything I know about 1980s horror, small towns, witches, ghosts, high school, and the supernatural, and asking what it looks like as a NIGHT SHIFT setting.

I guess a natural question is, could I play in Jackson, IL, using Dark Places & Demogorgons? Of course you could! I think if my "Plays Well with Others" posts (many linked below) are any indication, then yes, you could. Maybe I'll try it out one day. I already know Larina works well for both. But for now, I want to stick with NIGHT SHIFT since I have built so much more for it.

The Final Countdown

So no, Jackson is not Sunny Valley. But Sunny Valley helped make Jackson possible.

It gave me a place to test some ideas. It reminded me how well the 1980s work for supernatural gaming. It showed me how much fun there is in moving familiar horror tropes into Midwestern spaces. It also reminded me that the right system matters. Dark Places & Demogorgons served Sunny Valley well because it was about kids in the 1980s facing strange dangers.

NIGHT SHIFT serves Jackson because Jackson is about more than the kids.

It is about the town.

It is about the adults who remember too much, the teens who are just beginning to see, the monsters that never really left, and the old powers under the streets and fields. It is about what happens when the supernatural is not a visitor, but a resident.

Sunny Valley had a Hellmouth. Jackson has history.

That is the difference that makes each campaign unique.

Links

Plays Well With Others

• Plays Well With Others: DP&D Cryptid Manual
• Plays Wells With Others: Dark Places & Demogorgons and Buffy the Vampire Slayer
• Plays Well With Others: Modern Occult Horror Games
• Plays Well With Others: Night Shift and Modern Supernatural Games

Dark Places & Demogorgons

• All DP&D Posts
• Review: Survive This! Dark Places & Demogorgons Companions
• Review: Survive This! Dark Places & Demogorgons

Sunny Valley, OH

• Welcome to Sunny Valley, OH
• Willow & Tara: Survive This! Dark Places & Demogorgons
• Survive This! Dark Places and Demogorgons - Supernatural / Buffy Crossover
• Dark Places & Demogorgons: Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Charmed; How Soon is Now?
• Dark Places & Demogorgons: Buffy the Vampire Slayer and The Hex Girls; Bizarre Love Triangle
• Survive This! Dark Places and Demogorgons - Carmilla / Buffy Crossover
• Monstrous Monday: Melonheads for Dark Places & Demogorgons

NIGHT SHIFT Veterans of the Supernatural Wars

• All NIGHT SHIFT Posts
• Plays Well With Others, Generation HEX, and my Traveller Envy
• Plays Well With Others: Night Shift and Modern Supernatural Games
• Willow & Tara: NIGHT SHIFT Veterans of the Supernatural Wars

Monstrous Mondays: MoChem the Morgan Chemical Monster

 Going back today to Jackson, IL, my current NIGHT SHIFT^® campaign and my all-consuming obsession. 

Today I have a monster that I have been trying to bring into a game for the better part of 47 years. Not that this guy is a hard monster to figure out, it's just that his history is so tied up in my hometown that he didn't really fit into any other game I have done before.

This particular monster was created by me one afternoon in the summer of 1979 when I was 10. I had been reading a lot of Daniel Cohen's "monster books" thanks to our town's well-stocked Carnegie grant library. 

I lamented that our town didn't have their own local monster (the word "cryptid" was not in my vocabulary yet) though this was way before the internet and before I discovered microfiche to discover my hometown did indeed have it's own history of monsters, ghosts, and other things. 

I figured my creation was as "real" as anything I had been reading (age 10 was the start of my real exploration into skepticism, which led me to the conclusion that the supernatural was all bullshit). While I still enjoyed reading it all, I thought it was as real as, say, "Star Wars."

So in a fit of childhood bravado and creativity that I subject you all too every day, I made a monster.

Outside of town was a chemical plant. Now, I am not sharing the name because my blog gets hit by bots I have found material I have written here for games passed off as "truth."  Details about the Hex Girls and Astral Spiders, just to name two. So there is no reason to drag a real company with real employees into something invented by a 10-year-old. But I am keeping the monster's name.

So let's switch over to the fictional Jackson, IL and it's resident mutant.

The Story of MoChem and the MoChem Monster

Just east of town, the Mauvaisterre splits into various creeks and smaller bodies of water. One of these runs by the now-closed Morgan Chemical plant. Morgan Chemical came to Jackson in the late 1800s, and was founded by Jacobi Morgan and Sons. Morgan Chemical produced fertilizer, pesticides, and other agricultural chemicals needed by the growing farming boom in Central Illinois post-Civil War economy. The plant was well-run, provided hundreds of jobs for locals, and brought money into the local economy. So successful was the plant that the road on which the plant was located was renamed Morgan Ave, and businesses began to pop up all along the east-west corridor. So much so that it eventually took businesses away from the North-South Main Street. 

Jacobi Mogan was very typical of many of the entrepreneurs who had settled in the area at the time. "Work Hard. Tend to Family. Fear God" was his motto. In all fairness, he was, for the time, a good boss. His employees did work hard, and he paid them a fair wage. The company grew on his solid Presbyterian-Protestant work ethic and the belief that anything is possible with faith and hard work. He was an early benefactor to MacAlister College and helped build one of Jackson's famous Gothic-revival style churches.

His sons, however, were not so charitably minded. When the sons took control of the company in the early 1900s, they saw ways to increase profits by cutting some safety standards. They also got involved in the Great War, providing "fuel additives," but it was well known they had taken a side contract in weapons research. When World War II came around, Morgan Chemical provided gas masks, and rumor says the chemicals the gas masks protected against. 

With each generation, the Morgan family motto (metaphorically speaking) lost another word until, in practice, only “Work Hard” remained. By the 1960s, under the fourth generation of Morgans, the plant had become notorious among workers for failing safety standards, careless disposal practices, and toxic leaks. Waste seeped into the groundwater and into the channels that fed the Mauvaisterre. Cattle downstream sickened or died. Children born to workers were whispered about in hushed voices. Whatever prosperity the company had once brought to Jackson now came at a terrible cost.

It was in this poisoned environment that MoChem first came to be known.

No one agrees on what MoChem truly is. Some claim it was born in the tainted water itself, shaped by chemical waste and bad earth. Others whisper that it was once a deformed child, discarded by frightened parents after the plant poisoned too many families. Another tale says it had been a worker who fell into a vat and came back wrong. The most popular story holds that MoChem was an undercover reporter from St. Louis or Chicago who came to expose Morgan Chemical, got too close to the truth, and was murdered and dumped in the waste.

What is known for certain is that in 1973 Morgan Chemical was fined, shuttered, and abandoned. Cleanup was promised. Very little was ever done.

Soon after that, sightings began.

MoChem (AD&D 1st Edition)

Frequency: Very rare
No. Appearing: 1 (Unique)
Armor Class: 5
Move: 9”
Hit Dice: 4+4
% in Lair: 55%
Treasure Type: Nil
No. of Attacks: 2 or 1
Damage/Attack: 1-6/1-6 or special
Special Attacks: Blood drain, engulf small prey
Special Defenses: Semi-liquid form, surprise
Magic Resistance: Standard
Intelligence: Low to Semi-
Alignment: Neutral (Evil)
Size: M
Psionic Ability: Nil
Attack/Defense Modes: Nil
Level/X.P. Value: IV / 240 + 5 per hit point

MoChem (NIGHT SHIFT)

No. Appearing: 1 (Unique)
DV: 6
Move: 45 ft.; may flow through narrow gaps at 30 ft.
Vitality Dice: 4
Attacks: 2 slams/claws
Damage: 1d6/1d6
Special: Semi-liquid form, blood drain, engulf, surprise, light sensitivity, sunlight damage, double damage from fire
XP Value: 140

MoChem is a malformed humanoid horror spawned from decades of illegal chemical dumping. Roughly man-sized but squat and thick-bodied, it has overlong arms, short, powerful legs, a single milky eye in its upper torso, and a flexible feeding maw below. Its body is coated in a red oily secretion often mistaken for blood.

Combat: MoChem attacks with two heavy slams or claws for 1-6 points of damage each. It may instead attempt to batter, grapple with, or press itself against prey to feed. It is cunning only in an animal way, preferring darkness, ambush, narrow spaces, and prey that are alone or already frightened.

Special Abilities

Blood Drain: Whenever MoChem scores a critical hit, it opens feeding pores or its maw against exposed flesh, draining 1-4 additional hit points of blood and vital fluids. This is in addition to normal damage. A drained victim may appear pale, weak, and chemically burned around the wound. This is not a vampiric or magical effect.

Semi-Liquid Form: MoChem may compress itself into a half-fluid shape, allowing it to pass through bars, storm drains, culverts, wide cracks, broken windows, pipe openings, or any aperture large enough for a cat or small dog. In this form, it cannot attack normally, but it may move through spaces inaccessible to most man-sized creatures. It may resume its full shape in the following round. Because of this ability, it cannot be held by ordinary ropes or manacles, and non-magical grappling attacks against it suffer a -2 penalty.

Engulf Small Prey: Creatures of small build, as well as animals the size of dogs or smaller, may be engulfed if MoChem successfully hits with both attacks in a single round. The victim must save vs. petrification or be pinned within its semi-fluid mass. Thereafter, the victim suffers 1-4 hit points of damage per round until freed or dead. Small animals may simply be swallowed whole at the DM’s discretion.

Surprise: In darkness, sewers, culverts, abandoned industrial works, or wet ground near polluted runoff, MoChem surprises on 1-4 on 1d6.

Light Aversion: Bright light causes MoChem pain and disorientation. A strong lantern beam, continual light spell, or similar bright illumination forces it to attack at -2. If trapped in such light for more than 3 consecutive rounds, it will retreat if possible. A light spell cast directly upon or very near it inflicts 1-4 hit points of damage.

Sunlight: Direct natural sunlight inflicts 1-6 hit points of damage per round and prevents use of its semi-liquid form. MoChem avoids daylit areas whenever possible.

Vulnerability to Fire: All fire-based attacks inflict double damage.

MoChem is not undead, nor is it a true elemental or demon. It is a pollution-born predator, a toxic life form awakened in bad ground and abandoned waste. It lairs in culverts, runoff tunnels, chemical pits, and flooded industrial ruins.

MoChem possesses a rudimentary intelligence. Enough to know it despises its own existence, but not enough to know how to end it. It fears light and the sun and avoids both at all costs. According to scholars on local BBS sites, if you could lure it into direct sunlight, it would dry up and die. Others speculate that such a death would not be permanent unless the creature was also burned.

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I kinda wish 10-year-old me could see this!

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